Monday, May 26, 2014

A multicultural wife killing

A Pakistani immigrant allegedly beat his wife to death with a stick for making him the wrong dinner, a court heard. Noor Hussein, 75, believed he had the right to discipline 66-year-old Nazar at their apartment in Brooklyn, New York, his defense said.

But prosecutors claim he murdered her because she had made the mistake of cooking him a vegetarian meal made of lentils instead of goat meat.

At the start of Hussein's murder trial yesterday, a court heard the victim was left a 'bloody mess'.

Court papers quoted by the New York Post said: 'The defendant asked [his wife] to cook goat and [his wife] said she made something else.

'The conversation got louder and his wife disrespected defendant by cursing at defendant and saying motherf***** and that the defendant took a wooden stick and hit her with it on her arm and mouth.'

Defense attorney Julie Clark said Hussein admitted beating his wife but said that in his home country, beating your wife is customary.

She argued that Hussein, who met his wife in Pakistan before the couple married and moved to Brooklyn, is guilty of only manslaughter because he didn’t intend to kill her.

In her opening statements at the Brooklyn Supreme Court bench trial, Clark said: 'He comes from a culture where he thinks this is appropriate conduct, where he can hit his wife.

'He culturally believed he had the right to hit his wife and discipline his wife.'

However, Assistant District Attorney Sabeeha Madni said: 'This was not a man who was trying to discipline his wife.' She said neighbours would testify to the 'years of abuse' Hussein's wife suffered.

Madni said that on the day of her death, Hussein attacked his wife as she lay in her bed, leaving deep lacerations on her head, arms and shoulders, and causing her brain to hemorrhage.

Court papers state he beat her with a stick that the family had found in the street and used to stir their laundry in a washtub.

He then tried to clean up the blood that splattered onto their bedroom wall before calling his son for help, Madni said.

David Cameron is drawing up new immigration laws in response to rising anger over the number of EU migrants moving to Britain, The Telegraph can disclose.

The first details are expected in a Bill to be announced in the Queen’s Speech next week, a senior government source said.

Even stronger measures to block Europeans from poor countries coming to Britain for work are likely to be included in the Conservative manifesto for the general election next year.

The plans represent a concerted attempt to combat the rising popularity of the UK Independence Party which threatens to derail the Tories’ hopes of winning an outright parliamentary majority.

Measures under discussion include a law to discourage British-based companies from employing cheaper foreign workers, deporting unemployed Europeans after six months and a new “wealth test” to prevent vast numbers coming to Britain from the poorest EU countries.

News of the proposals emerged as senior Tories called for action on immigration after Ukip’s surge in last week’s local elections.

Nigel Farage’s party may also top the popular vote when the European election results are announced tonight.

George Osborne, the Chancellor, promised yesterday to “listen” and “respond” to public concern over the issue.

“We need to take the public anger about issues like immigration, jobs and welfare — and deliver answers that work,” he told a ConservativeHome conference in London.

Another senior Tory minister said that the party had to “demonstrate that we are listening”.

Labour had their own problems last night as there were signs that Ed Miliband’s allies were beginning to attack him.

A shadow cabinet minister said there were voters who named Mr Miliband as “a problem”. The MP said: “We have good policies and we are not communicating them. I don’t think we had a plan for the election.”

In other key developments yesterday:

* A poll of 26,000 people in key marginal constituencies suggested Labour was on course to win the next election. The survey by Lord Ashcroft, the former Conservative Party vice-chairman, found a 6.5 per cent swing away from the Tories in 26 battleground seats. If the result is repeated next year it would give Ed Miliband a healthy majority of up to 70 in the Commons.

* Mr Osborne called on Ukip voters to “focus” ahead of next year’s general election and said the “only choice” was between Mr Cameron and Mr Miliband.

* Criticism of Labour’s local election campaign grew, with Frank Field, the former Labour Cabinet minister, warning that Mr Miliband faced “big questions” over his ability to connect with voters.

* Ukip was embroiled in new turmoil after one of the party’s new councillors was alleged to have referred to gay people as “perverts” and African migrants as “scroungers”.

Dave Small, who was elected to Redditch borough council, is facing a party investigation.

He also attacked Clare Balding, the BBC broadcaster, and Sir Elton John, the singer, over their sexuality and referring to “our sworn enemies in the Muslim world” in comments on Facebook.

The Conservatives introduced a target to reduce net migration to the tens of thousands by May next year.

However, according to figures last week, net migration — the difference between migrants arriving and leaving — rose to 212,000 last year, fuelled by an increase of 43,000 European migrants.

The Coalition has brought in controls on the number of non-Europeans entering the country and new rules that say European migrants cannot automatically claim benefits in Britain. The Tories now want to go further.

Some of their more radical plans – especially on reforming European laws – would be unlikely to win support from Nick Clegg’s Liberal Democrats and are expected to form part of the Tory manifesto for next year’s general election.

“We are in government with the Lib Dems so we are not going to be able to close borders,” a senior Conservative source said.

Plans being discussed by senior Tories include a new law to stop immigrants “undercutting” British workers looking for jobs.

Employers who failed to pay the minimum wage would face heavier fines under the reforms, with maximum penalties of up to £20,000 for each individual worker they have underpaid. The current highest fine is £5,000.

A plan is also being examined to deport European migrants who have been claiming benefits for six months and have no realistic chance of finding work.

Conservatives are considering replicating a German proposal to deport unemployed Europeans, regardless of whether they claim benefits. Another proposal is to extend the length of time EU migrants must wait before they can claim benefits, from three months to six months or longer. Despite legal difficulties in European courts, Iain Duncan Smith, the Work and Pensions Secretary, is said to be working on the issue.

A fourth measure under consideration is a restriction on the number of European migrants who come to Britain from new EU member states, potentially including a “wealth test” banning migrants from the poorest countries until their economies improve.

This would require agreement in Brussels.

The plans for immigration reforms were already under way before the local and European elections.

The Cabinet has been shown a draft of the Queen’s Speech, which the Queen will present to both Houses of Parliament on June 4. “None of this is in response to these elections because the Queen’s Speech has already been agreed between the Coalition partners,” the minister said.

With one council election result outstanding yesterday, there was strong support for Mr Farage’s party, although Tories said the Ukip vote was 6 per cent lower than in last year’s local elections.

Ukip won 161 council seats in England, while the Conservatives lost 231.

The projected national share of the vote, compiled by the BBC, put Ukip on 17 per cent, Labour on 31 per cent and the Conservatives on 29 per cent, with the Liberal Democrats on 13 per cent.

Barring a last-minute bolt of lightning on the way to the polling station, I shan't be voting Ukip in today's Euro elections. But, my goodness, over the past few weeks I have sometimes been sorely tempted to do so.

Anyone who has the remotest sympathy for the abused underdog will have felt for Nigel Farage as the major parties and much of the media have lined up to trash him.

This has been the smear campaign to end all smear campaigns. Nick Clegg has spoken about Ukip's 'fake solutions and dangerous fantasies'.

He has had the gall to suggest that it is 'unpatriotic' to call for Britain to leave the European Union. I wouldn't suggest that Mr Clegg doesn't love this country, so why impugn the patriotism of Eurosceptics?

David Cameron, who has a track record of saying rude things about Ukip members, has excelled himself by referring to Ukip's 'appalling' views.

That presumably means that he thinks the millions of people who will vote for the party today are 'appalling', too.

The Prime Minister has also declared that Ukip represents 'the politics of anger'. But what on earth is wrong with being angry if so many things are going wrong with your country?

A bit more genuine anger from Mr Cameron would be welcome. For his part, George Osborne stirred the pot yesterday by suggesting that Ukip (though he didn't actually name the party) presents a threat to the economy. Come on!

They haven't got a single MP, and yet somehow they are a danger to our economic well-being.

Meanwhile, Ed Miliband has described Mr Farage's remark that he would feel 'uncomfortable' if Romanians moved in next door as a 'racial slur'.

I happen to believe the Ukip leader did go too far on that occasion - though he has since apologised - but what he said hardly amounted to a slur, racial or otherwise.

Much of the media has obediently been doing the work of the three main parties. The BBC's normally admirable political editor, Nick Robinson, interviewed Mr Farage in the tones one might employ for a convicted international war criminal.

Most newspapers of Left and Right (though not the Mail) have depicted Ukip as an extremist party inhabited by fruitcakes, crooks or dangerous lunatics.

The normally Eurosceptic Times and Sun have been among Mr Farage's most unforgiving critics. Of course, Ukip harbours some undesirable characters, and the media would be failing in their duty if they did not expose them.

But I suspect that the majority of Ukip members are solid types who are not racist, and I am sure the same can be said for most people who will vote for the party today.

But here is the extraordinary thing. Despite this barrage of insults from the political class and much of the media class - surely unprecedented in scale in modern times - Ukip still rides high in most opinion polls, and it seems likely that it will outdo the Tories in today's vote, and very possibly Labour, too.

In other words, Ukip's support has remained remarkably resilient to the all-encompassing scare stories, and the insinuations that the party is almost literally diabolic. Why should this be so?

I suggest it is because many people can see that what Nigel Farage says about uncontrolled immigration reflects their own experiences.

They know that the influx of foreigners has put enormous strain on housing, hospitals, schools and, in some cases, on the availability of jobs.

And these people who are tempted by Ukip can also understand Mr Farage's argument that, so long as we stay within the EU, we will remain powerless to control our borders, and to stem immigration from any of the other 27 member states.

Tories, Labour, and even the Lib Dems when the wind is blowing in a particular direction claim they understand people's anxieties over immigration, but of course they don't. If they did, they would not describe Mr Farage and his party as racist.

Because in doing so they are effectively describing the millions who vote for Ukip today as racist - the decent working-class voters, especially in northern England, who are deserting Labour, and the former Tory stalwarts who don't like or trust David Cameron and his clique.

To characterise such people as racist or extremist amounts to one of the greatest acts of political idiocy I can remember.

To be fair, one or two people in the main parties have recognised the danger. Lord Glasman - Labour's so-called 'guru', and an occasional adviser to Mr Miliband - has said it is wrong to 'abuse' Mr Farage for saying what he thinks, and that people are 'genuinely entitled to feel concerned about immigration'.

The trouble is that Lord Glasman is an exception. For the past few weeks have served to prove, if we did not already know it, that the leaders of the three main parties are as lofty and detached from the experiences of ordinary people as they are steeped in condescension.

There's a huge political lesson here. If I am right, and Ukip triumphs in the polls, the three major parties must change their game.

It is no longer good enough to rubbish Ukip. It doesn't work. The parties will have to show that they want to find solutions to the problems worrying many people.

And the lesson that scare-mongering usually backfires should be extended. The tactics that have been employed so disastrously against Ukip are similar to those visited upon the Scots.

Brethren north of the border have been bombarded with every threat you can think of short of pestilence, and every attempt to terrify them seems to weaken support for the Union.

George Osborne is said by some to be a brilliant political strategist, but if he is the brains behind the negative attacks on Ukip and the blood-curdling threats to the Scots, I beg to suggest that he may not be the genius he is cracked up to be.

In the end I shan't be voting Ukip, and I'll tell you why. It's too much of a one-man band. It only has two thought-out policies - on Europe and immigration. Nigel Farage's unnecessary remarks about Romanians living next door also made me wonder about his judgment.

It was a silly thing to say, as he seems now to realise. Shabby And I don't like his wild way with figures, though he's certainly not the first politician to be fast and loose in this respect.

For example, it turns out that Ukip's assertion that 92 per cent of cash machine crime in London is committed by Romanians is based on the experience of one policeman. That's not good enough.

Moreover, if you believe, as I do, that this country's membership of the European Union must be put to a referendum, we should be realistic.

It is only going to happen if the Tories win the next general election. But it should be said that over the past few weeks, Mr Farage has eclipsed his rivals, and made them look shabby, devious or lightweight.

The Ukip leader is an old-fashioned political campaigner - courageous, brimming with as much enthusiasm as his counterparts have negativity, and full of conviction.

If I am right, he is about to deliver a shock to the established parties such as they have seldom experienced.

And they will be little short of certifiably insane if their main response is to continue to maintain that he and his millions of supporters are racist.

A "butty" is a Northern word for a sandwich and in the North and among the workers generally chip butties and bacon butties are popular food. I myself am quite partial to a late-night bacon butty. But in a typical display of Leftist elitism, Labour Party leader Ed Miliband showed that he had no idea how to eat one. He looked as if he were being poisoned. I guess it was not much like his mother's gefilte fish

This should have been one of the best weeks of Ed Miliband’s career. In fact, it has been by far the worst. Disaster followed disaster.

Having made the ‘cost of living crisis’ the centrepiece of his local and Euro election campaign, the hapless Miliband suggested that his family’s weekly shop cost around £70 or £80 — a figure most commentators agreed was a woeful underestimate, suggesting that he didn’t really know what he was talking about.

Then the man who lives in a London house worth £2.5 million announced rather coyly that he is only ‘relatively comfortably off’.

Worst of all were those pictures of him clumsily scoffing a bacon-and-ketchup sandwich in a desperate attempt to look like a man of the people. Those images, above all, will remain in the public’s minds.

We live in a country where women are allowed to choose whether to have an abortion or not. Now, I wish that wasn't the case. I wish that the rights of the unborn were protected as well. We should do everything in our power to protect the rights of the unborn, but for now, abortion remains legal across the country.

But what if women aren't even allowed to choose? What happens when ideology or simply the bottom-line forces abortion clinics to compel patients to get abortions? What do we do when abortion clinics literally kidnap young girls and refuse to let them go until they agree to go forward with the procedure?

That is exactly what happened in one Buffalo abortion clinic!

A 15-year old girl (who will remain nameless) went to a Buffalo, New York clinic for a routine ultrasound. Her controlling boyfriend would not let her visit the local pregnancy clinic, so she sought out an ultrasound at the abortion clinic in her area. After talking with nurses, it became clear to the girl that the clinic wasn't interested in performing an ultrasound... They were determined to pressure her to abort her pregnancy. When the young girl asked to leave the facility, the clinic refused to let her go and locked her in the room until she would agree to the procedure. The girl's hysterical mother was forcibly removed from the premises and it actually took a call to 911 to force the abortion clinic to get this traumatized girl released.

Stories like this happen across America as young and vulnerable women are forced to get abortions by clinics eager to make a profit. This Buffalo clinic is just the first in a new trend of combining birth centers with abortion clinics. The goal for organizations like Planned Parenthood is to make their facilities the one-stop-shop for all pregnancy procedures. As a result, they will be able to access government funding previously cut off from them and be able to funnel it into their abortion side of the business.

When presented with the option to either carry a baby to term or abort it, these clinics will always push women to choose the latter for ideological and financial reasons. That is why we have to stop these clinics from merging with birth centers and cut off their funding all-together!

What happened to this young girl in Buffalo is absolutely despicable. Yes, the kidnapping/detainment itself was horrible, but that seems to be a rather rare occurrence. What isn't rare, however, is abortion clinics trying to "up-sell" pregnant women to agree to have an abortion.

You have women who go to these facilities looking for an ultrasound or a simple OB-GYN visit and they end up being pressured by nurses and the staff to just get an abortion instead. This 15-year old Buffalo girl wanted to see her ultrasound, but the staff refused to show it to her. Why? Because they know when a women is given the opportunity to see the life that is forming within her, she is much less likely to agree to kill it.

That hurts clinics like Planned Parenthood's bottom line.

That is why many states have tried to mandate ultrasounds for anyone seeking an abortion. This isn't too much to ask, is it? Is it too much to ask abortion recipients to first look at the life that they plan to snuff out?

Unfortunately, while these clinics do advertise ultrasound services, this is usually nothing but a bait-and-switch. That's how they got this 15-year old girl to walk through the door and this happens every day across the country.

These abortion/pregnancy clinics receive taxpayer funding. They receive YOUR money. In many cases, federal funding cannot be used for abortion related procedures or advertising, which is ludicrous. Not because abortion should be publicly financed, but because these restrictions do nothing to stop abortion clinics from moving the money around once they receive it.

The new trend is to combine abortion clinics with birth centers. This gives the illusion that abortion is a natural part of the birthing process, but it also allows these centers to receive more federal funding because they provide more non-abortion services. But when it comes down to it, these centers cannot quench their thirst for money and their ideological support for abortion.

This 15-year old girl is just one of the many stories of women going into clinics for simple check-ups only to be pressured into terminating their pregnancy. And the worst part of this is, YOU are paying for this! You are allowing this bait-and-switch to happen!

Life is our most precious commodity. It should be protected at all costs, not stamped out. Yet today, pregnancy centers are treated like some door-buster sale on Black Friday: whatever it takes to get them through the door so nurses can "up-sell" abortion procedures. Women and girls come in seeking normal check-ups and, in the case of the Buffalo girl, are kidnapped until they agree to terminate their pregnancy.

This should offend the conscience of mankind. Abortion, the murder of the unborn, is deplorable at any level. However the fact that this type of bait-and-switch is funded in part by YOUR tax dollars is absolutely unacceptable!

American "liberals" often deny being Leftists and say that they are very different from the Communist rulers of other countries. The only real difference, however, is how much power they have. In America, their power is limited by democracy. To see what they WOULD be like with more power, look at where they ARE already very powerful: in America's educational system -- particularly in the universities and colleges. They show there the same respect for free-speech and political diversity that Stalin did: None. So look to the colleges to see what the whole country would be like if "liberals" had their way. It would be a dictatorship.

Background

The most beautiful woman in the world? I think she was. Yes: It's Agnetha Fältskog

A beautiful baby is king -- with blue eyes, blond hair and white skin. How incorrect can you get?

Kristina Pimenova, once said to be the most beautiful girl in the world. Note blue eyes and blonde hair

Enough said

A face of Leftist hate: Cory Booker, (D-NJ)

There really is an actress named Donna Air. She seems a pleasant enough woman, though

What feminism has wrought:

There's actually some wisdom there. The dreamy lady says she is holding out for someone who meets her standards. The other lady reasonably replies "There's nobody there". Standards can be unrealistically high and feminists have laboured mightily to make them so

Some bright spark occasionally decides that Leftism is feminine and conservatism is masculine. That totally misses the point. If true, how come the vote in American presidential elections usually shows something close to a 50/50 split between men and women? And in the 2016 Presidential election, Trump won 53 percent of white women, despite allegations focused on his past treatment of some women.

Political correctness is Fascism pretending to be manners

Political Correctness is as big a threat to free speech as Communism and Fascism. All 3 were/are socialist.

The problem with minorities is not race but culture. For instance, many American black males fit in well with the majority culture. They go to college, work legally for their living, marry and support the mother of their children, go to church, abstain from crime and are considerate towards others. Who could reasonably object to such people? It is people who subscribe to minority cultures -- black, Latino or Muslim -- who can give rise to concern. If antisocial attitudes and/or behaviour become pervasive among a group, however, policies may reasonably devised to deal with that group as a whole

Black lives DON'T matter -- to other blacks. The leading cause of death among young black males is attack by other young black males

Leftist logic: There are allegedly no distinctions between groups of humans, yet we're still supposed to celebrate diversity.

Identity politics is a form of racism

'White Privilege'. .. Oh yes. .. That was abundant in the Irish potato famines. ... And in the Scottish Highland Clearances. ...And in transportations to Australia. ... And in Workhouses. ... 'White privilege' was absolutely RIFE!

Psychological defence mechanisms such as projection play a large part in Leftist thinking and discourse. So their frantic search for evil in the words and deeds of others is easily understandable. The evil is in themselves. Leftist motivations are fundamentally Fascist. They want to "fundamentally transform" the lives of their fellow citizens, which is as authoritarian as you can get. We saw where it led in Russia and China. The "compassion" that Leftists parade is just a cloak for their ghastly real motivations

Occasionally I put up on this blog complaints about the privileged position of homosexuals in today's world. I look forward to the day when the pendulum swings back and homosexuals are treated as equals before the law. To a simple Leftist mind, that makes me "homophobic", even though I have no fear of any kind of homosexuals.

But I thought it might be useful for me to point out a few things. For a start, I am not unwise enough to say that some of my best friends are homosexual. None are, in fact. Though there are two homosexuals in my normal social circle whom I get on well with and whom I think well of.

Of possible relevance: My late sister was a homosexual; I loved Liberace's sense of humour and I thought that Robert Helpmann was marvellous as Don Quixote in the Nureyev ballet of that name.

One may say that the person who gets in trouble with drugs is just as dumb without them

I record on this blog many examples of negligent, inefficient and reprehensible behaviour on the part of British police. After 13 years of Labour party rule they have become highly politicized, with values that reflect the demands made on them by the political Left rather than than what the community expects of them. They have become lazy and cowardly and avoid dealing with real crime wherever possible -- preferring instead to harass normal decent people for minor infractions -- particularly offences against political correctness. They are an excellent example of the destruction that can be brought about by Leftist meddling.

I also record on this blog much social worker evil -- particularly British social worker evil. The evil is neither negligent nor random. It follows exactly the pattern you would expect from the Marxist-oriented indoctrination they get in social work school -- where the middle class is seen as the enemy and the underclass is seen as virtuous. So social workers are lightning fast to take children away from normal decent parents on the basis of of minor or imaginary infractions while turning a blind eye to gross child abuse by the underclass

The genetics of crime: I have been pointing out for some time the evidence that there is a substantial genetic element in criminality. Some people are born bad. See here, here, here, here (DOI: 10.1111/jcpp.12581) and here, for instance"

Gender is a property of words, not of people. Using it otherwise is just another politically correct distortion -- though not as pernicious as calling racial discrimination "Affirmative action"

Postmodernism is fundamentally frivolous. Postmodernists routinely condemn racism and intolerance as wrong but then say that there is no such thing as right and wrong. They are clearly not being serious. Either they do not really believe in moral nihilism or they believe that racism cannot be condemned!

Postmodernism is in fact just a tantrum. Post-Soviet reality in particular suits Leftists so badly that their response is to deny that reality exists. That they can be so dishonest, however, simply shows how psychopathic they are.

So why do Leftists say "There is no such thing as right and wrong" when backed into a rhetorical corner? They say it because that is the predominant conclusion of analytic philosophers. And, as Keynes said: "Madmen in authority, who hear voices in the air, are distilling their frenzy from some academic scribbler of a few years back”

Juergen Habermas, a veteran leftist German philosopher stunned his admirers not long ago by proclaiming, "Christianity, and nothing else, is the ultimate foundation of liberty, conscience, human rights, and democracy, the benchmarks of Western civilization. To this day, we have no other options [than Christianity]. We continue to nourish ourselves from this source. Everything else is postmodern chatter."

Consider two "jokes" below:

Q. "Why are Leftists always standing up for blacks and homosexuals?

A. Because for all three groups their only God is their penis"

Pretty offensive, right? So consider this one:

Q. "Why are evangelical Christians like the Taliban?

A. They are both religious fundamentalists"

The latter "joke" is not a joke at all, of course. It is a comparison routinely touted by Leftists. Both "jokes" are greatly offensive and unfair to the parties targeted but one gets a pass without question while the other would bring great wrath on the head of anyone uttering it. Why? Because political correctness is in fact just Leftist bigotry. Bigotry is unfairly favouring one or more groups of people over others -- usually justified as "truth".

One of my more amusing memories is from the time when the Soviet Union still existed and I was teaching sociology in a major Australian university. On one memorable occasion, we had a representative of the Soviet Womens' organization visit us -- a stout and heavily made-up lady of mature years. When she was ushered into our conference room, she was greeted with something like adulation by the local Marxists. In question time after her talk, however, someone asked her how homosexuals were treated in the USSR. She replied: "We don't have any. That was before the revolution". The consternation and confusion that produced among my Leftist colleagues was hilarious to behold and still lives vividly in my memory. The more things change, the more they remain the same, however. In Sept. 2007 President Ahmadinejad told Columbia university that there are no homosexuals in Iran.

It is widely agreed (with mainly Lesbians dissenting) that boys need their fathers. What needs much wider recognition is that girls need their fathers too. The relationship between a "Daddy's girl" and her father is perhaps the most beautiful human relationship there is. It can help give the girl concerned inner strength for the rest of her life.

A modern feminist complains: "We are so far from “having it all” that “we barely even have a slice of the pie, which we probably baked ourselves while sobbing into the pastry at 4am”."

Patriotism does NOT in general go with hostilty towards others. See e.g. here and here and even here ("Ethnocentrism and Xenophobia: A Cross-Cultural Study" by anthropologist Elizabeth Cashdan. In Current Anthropology Vol. 42, No. 5, December 2001).

The love of bureaucracy is very Leftist and hence "correct". Who said this? "Account must be taken of every single article, every pound of grain, because what socialism implies above all is keeping account of everything". It was V.I. Lenin

"An objection I hear frequently is: ‘Why should we tolerate intolerance?’ The assumption is that tolerating views that you don’t agree with is like a gift, an act of kindness. It suggests we’re doing people a favour by tolerating their view. My argument is that tolerance is vital to us, to you and I, because it’s actually the presupposition of all our freedoms. You cannot be free in any meaningful sense unless there is a recognition that we are free to act on our beliefs, we’re free to think what we want and express ourselves freely. Unless we have that freedom, all those other freedoms that we have on paper mean nothing" -- SOURCE

RELIGION:

Although it is a popular traditional chant, the "Kol Nidre" should be abandoned by modern Jewish congregations. It was totally understandable where it originated in the Middle Ages but is morally obnoxious in the modern world and vivid "proof" of all sorts of antisemitic stereotypes

What the Bible says about homosexuality:

"Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind; It is abomination" -- Lev. 18:22

In his great diatribe against the pagan Romans, the apostle Paul included homosexuality among their sins:

"For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature. And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.... Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them" -- Romans 1:26,27,32.

So churches that condone homosexuality are clearly post-Christian

Although I am an atheist, I have great respect for the wisdom of ancient times as collected in the Bible. And its condemnation of homosexuality makes considerable sense to me. In an era when family values are under constant assault, such a return to the basics could be helpful. Nonetheless, I approve of St. Paul's advice in the second chapter of his epistle to the Romans that it is for God to punish them, not us. In secular terms, homosexuality between consenting adults in private should not be penalized but nor should it be promoted or praised. In Christian terms, "Gay pride" is of the Devil

The homosexuals of Gibeah (Judges 19 & 20) set in train a series of events which brought down great wrath and destruction on their tribe. The tribe of Benjamin was almost wiped out when it would not disown its homosexuals. Are we seeing a related process in the woes presently being experienced by the amoral Western world? Note that there was one Western country that was not affected by the global financial crisis and subsequently had no debt problems: Australia. In September 2012 the Australian federal parliament considered a bill to implement homosexual marriage. It was rejected by a large majority -- including members from both major political parties

Religion is deeply human. The recent discoveries at Gobekli Tepe suggest that it was religion not farming that gave birth to civilization. Early civilizations were at any rate all very religious. Atheism is mainly a very modern development and is even now very much a minority opinion

"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!" - Isaiah 5:20 (KJV)

I think it's not unreasonable to see Islam as the religion of the Devil. Any religion that loves death or leads to parents rejoicing when their children blow themselves up is surely of the Devil -- however you conceive of the Devil. Whether he is a man in a red suit with horns and a tail, a fallen spirit being, or simply the evil side of human nature hardly matters. In all cases Islam is clearly anti-life and only the Devil or his disciples could rejoice in that.

And there surely could be few lower forms of human behaviour than to give abuse and harm in return for help. The compassionate practices of countries with Christian traditions have led many such countries to give a new home to Muslim refugees and seekers after a better life. It's basic humanity that such kindness should attract gratitude and appreciation. But do Muslims appreciate it? They most commonly show contempt for the countries and societies concerned. That's another sign of Satanic influence.

And how's this for demonic thinking?: "Asian father whose daughter drowned in Dubai sea 'stopped lifeguards from saving her because he didn't want her touched and dishonoured by strange men'

Islamic terrorism isn’t a perversion of Islam. It’s the implementation of Islam. It is not a religion of the persecuted, but the persecutors. Its theology is violent supremacism.

And where Muslims tell us that they love death, the great Christian celebration is of the birth of a baby -- the monogenes theos (only begotten god) as John 1:18 describes it in the original Greek -- Christmas!

No wonder so many Muslims are hostile and angry. They have little companionship from women and not even any companionship from dogs -- which are emotionally important in most other cultures. Dogs are "unclean"

On all my blogs, I express my view of what is important primarily by the readings that I select for posting. I do however on occasions add personal comments in italicized form at the beginning of an article.

I am rather pleased to report that I am a lifelong conservative. Out of intellectual curiosity, I did in my youth join organizations from right across the political spectrum so I am certainly not closed-minded and am very familiar with the full spectrum of political thinking. Nonetheless, I did not have to undergo the lurch from Left to Right that so many people undergo. At age 13 I used my pocket-money to subscribe to the "Reader's Digest" -- the main conservative organ available in small town Australia of the 1950s. I have learnt much since but am pleased and amused to note that history has since confirmed most of what I thought at that early age.

I imagine that the the RD is still sending mailouts to my 1950s address!

Germaine Greer is a stupid old Harpy who is notable only for the depth and extent of her hatreds

There are also two blogspot blogs which record what I think are my main recent articles here and here. Similar content can be more conveniently accessed via my subject-indexed list of short articles here or here (I rarely write long articles these days)

Note: If the link to one of my articles is not working, the article concerned can generally be viewed by prefixing to the filename the following: http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/42197/20121106-1520/jonjayray.comuv.com/

NOTE: The archives provided by blogspot below are rather inconvenient. They break each month up into small bits. If you want to scan whole months at a time, the backup archives will suit better. See here or here